By Linda Ditch on January 20, 2020
Hot Chocolate to Warm a Cold Winter
My favorite way to warm my cold fingers in the winter is to wrap them around a warm cup of a hot beverage. Often it is tea or coffee. However, I like to mix things up once in a while. For a sweet craving, I’ll make homemade hot chocolate to warm my fingers and soul.
Warm chocolate beverages have been consumed for centuries, though these drinks were not the type we know and love. The Mayans and Aztecs drank a bitter beverage made of crushed cacao seeds (the key ingredient of chocolate) mixed with water. Sometimes crushed chili peppers were added. Aztec king Montezuma used the beverage as an aphrodisiac and consumed 50 goblets full each day.
Hot chocolate as we know it came about when the Europeans brought cacao to their homeland. They added sugar and hot milk to make the beverage more drinkable, and at times added spices such as cinnamon and cardamom. Hot chocolate—also called cocoa and drinking chocolate—was the only form of chocolate people enjoyed until the mid-1800s when a British company created the solid chocolate bar.
Hot chocolate and hot cocoa are actually two different drinks. One is made with solid chocolate that is melted into the beverage, while the other is made with cocoa powder, sugar and hot milk. Some recipes use both powder and solid.
To dress up my hot chocolate, I like to include crushed peppermint candies, whipped cream, marshmallows, and/or chocolate shavings. A little malt powder will give the drink a malted-milk ball taste. And for grown-ups, a bit of liquor is a nice twist. Try Kahlua, Frangelico, Amaretto, RumChata or Bailey’s Irish Cream.
Both of these recipes have a rich, chocolaty flavor. Feel free to add more milk to fit your taste. Also, it is easy to double these recipes for a large group. Just pour the warm mixture into a slow cooker to keep warm for serving.
Linda Ditch
Linda Ditch is a food writer who inherited her love of cooking from her dad. She learned most of her cooking skills watching her grandmother cook in her farmhouse kitchen, and from TV chefs like Julia Child, Jacques Pippen and Graham Kerr. Her work appears regularly in KANSAS! Magazine and Topeka Magazine. You can... Read more
